Over the years, our appreciation of photography has changed. New tools and platforms, including blogs, smartphones and social networks, have played a key role in this development. Photos are everywhere and are quickly becoming the new way for consumers to communicate. Instagram and Pinterest are amongst the top social media outlets, bringing imagery to a new level. Showing huge usage figures across the globe, Snapchat allows users to share their feelings with images, instead of straight text. Today’s top communicators understand the power of high-quality and visually appealing photos to make their news even more attractive to reporters, analysts and consumer audiences.

Photos should be inspirational and appealing to readers, i.e., potential customers. Aren’t you bored of seeing head shots of CEOs as depicted fifty years ago? Times have changed! Forget the dull background with your CEO standing straight in front of the camera. Frontal head shots are over. Today, your CEO can be outside, sitting in his/her office or standing in an industry unit, relaxed, surrounded by a colorful background, in semi-profile bringing true dynamism to the image. Picture format can be horizontal (wide format being very trendy). Choose unexpected perspectives and control the lighting to ensure the focus is in the right place. The photo should capture the person behind the portrait. The photo should trigger an emotional connection with the viewer, directly shaping their view of the CEO and the organization they lead.

The same applies for products and commercial imagery. Inanimate objects can be eye-catching too depending on the angle and the arrangement. Presenting a new product does not need to be formal and in a safe tone. Elevate your product by re-picturing it. Trends in 2015 are focusing on creating big, dynamic images on small screens. Use these images to showcase your organization’s big vision. Remember that the look and feel of your images conveys meaning in and around your brand messages.

We know today that 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text2. Getting the right image can be the key to conveying your message in a few seconds. Engaging, effective and meaningful visual communications help consolidate your customers’ perceptions of your business, while simultaneously helping to reinforce your brand’s identity.

So, the next time you send a news release, add imagery that people will remember and want to share.

By Serena Ehrlich, Director of Social and Evolving Media, Business Wire

Earlier this month I attended a Digital Hollywood panel devoted to building audiences and awareness on YouTube.

This is a very common topic here in Los Angeles. With film making, celebrities and the history of Hollywood permeating every corner of the city, we were the first region to truly embrace YouTube for what the platform could be – a way to entertain, educate, delight and shock audiences with amazing visual content.

So if this is a common topic, something Hollywood content creators and the marketers they work with should know inherently, why is it still on the Digital Hollywood agenda? Because no matter how great your content is, it means nothing if your content is not seen.

Almost the entire panel discussion, fueled by questions from the audience, focused on how to generate views of the variety of videos being uploaded every single day. There are hundreds of thousands of beautifully shot, high quality videos on YouTube that no one has ever seen. Why is that? Because the concept of if you place it here, the audience will come is antiquated and completely misleading, even for producers creating content featuring famous celebrities. The simple truth still stands, there is no such thing as great content, only seen content.

So how do YouTube video stars get their visibility? What makes one video go viral, while another video fails? Just like every other marketing and communications program, video programs need to be supported with paid, earned, owned and shared marketing programming.

In this session, the three top ways to ensure views of your YouTube videos are:

Create relevant content – This may seem obvious but there are still a huge number of marketers creating aspirational content, or content meant to activate new fans, versus content meant to create actual audiences. In reality, content should be made for every touch point in the customer journey, but if you are on a limited budget or time, focus on creating content for the most active of your prospects and customers. Create content that these existing brand fans will enjoy and share with their friends and reap not only views of evangelism.

Tag your content for search – When it comes to placing your content on YouTube, the description and keywords you use are just as important as the content itself. Utilize titles and descriptions to entice audiences to view your video. Include relevant keywords and well as real-time keywords, and while you don’t want to use an incorrect headline, writing a compelling, interesting headline will increase views dramatically.

Pay to promote your video – If you spent money to create content, you have to use money to promote it. Videos should be promoted via earned, paid, owned and through partnerships. Smart brands are increasing impact of their content by increasing potential audiences.

Paid promotion: To promote your YouTube videos there are two successful kinds of paid promotion that you can do. First, consider paid advertising across active social channels and via Google AdWords to help relevant audiences find you via search and social. Secondly, issue a press release to alert media outlets, bloggers and more that your video or video channels exist. Include a short summary of the types of content you include and, if possible, frequency of updates, to generate views

Owned channels: You have to tell people about your video; how else will they know your program exists? Promote your new YouTube content on your website, social channels, email signatures and intranets to increase views and shares of your content.

Initiate partnerships: The single fastest way to increase the views of your YouTube videos is to ask likeminded, more famous YouTube personalities to share it for you. Yes, this may require an exchange of money but it works.

Leading marketers know that video is one of the top tools in today’s marketing arsenal. Not only are desktop and mobile video consumption rates through the roof, the medium is so impactful that within seconds it can build, and deepen the relationships between a brand and its customer. But first you have to distribute it.

What other ways are you finding success in promoting video content? Please let us know in the comments below.

Last month, Serena Ehrlich, Business Wire’s director of social and evolving media, authored a piece outlining the importance of increasing user engagement for increasing the effectiveness of press releases, and how to accomplish that. As more and more content continues to flood the internet, marketers who take a different approach to employing assets are seeing a much higher overall return on investment when it comes to interest in their press releases.

In 2015, look for PR professionals and reporters alike to begin using interactive assets to round out coverage. With more than 65% of the world professing to be kinetic learners, text only press releases and flat images no longer keep the reader’s attention.

Not only do we cover the 7 types of news reporters want to see in a press release, we discuss what supporting assets work the best. As we move into a more visual, interactive world, text-only press releases are becoming increasingly rare. Reporters are using images to round out their story and if you are not providing one, your competitor may be.

Are you responsible for your organizations’s communications program? For explaining new company initiatives to media outlets, influencers and other key constituents? Are you looking for new ways to increase your coverage, to build better fans and to increase social conversations about your news? Then why are you issuing plain text press releases?

Press releases jump start awareness, generate coverage, initiate conversations and more. Whether your release is text only, or includes images and graphics, you are starting a conversation, the difference is how many impactful conversations you are generating.

In a recent article for CommPro.biz, Serena Ehrlich, our director of social and evolving media breaks down the latest in content and news distribution, the embeddable asset widget called the Capsule. This single asset, shared and embedded by media outlets via a single link, provides readers on-demand access to the videos, photos, PDF forms and more they want, all while reading your coverage.

Christmas, my data loving friends, has arrived early! For those unfamiliar, this report outlines global and United States-specific mobile, internet and technology trends that impact corporate decision making in a wide range of industries.

At first glance, this report is a fascinating look at how mobile, internet, and human behavior trends have all collided in 2014. However, as you read further, you start to see that these trends tell a very interesting story for today’s communicator. Today’s news consumers are moving away from traditional text only news, and consuming more than ever, a blend of text and multimedia to tell a story. While this report has a wide number of very interesting data points, we pulled out the 10 key trends directly relevant to public relations, investor relations, marketing and communications professionals.

1. Customized internet-based learning opportunities continue to grow, allowing people who learn in different ways to find the one that fits for them.

PR IMPLICATIONS: As noted earlier this year, more than 63% of the world’s population are visual learners, making traditional text only press releases cumbersome to digest. Press releases that integrate images and/or video allow the reader to digest in their own way. (What a great way to build fans!)

2. Mobile phones and mobile internet are here to stay, with mobile data traffic increasing a whopping 81 percent! The biggest use of that mobile data is consuming video.

PR IMPLICATION: Mobile video consumption is at an all time high. When your audience reads your news, are you including a video clip? Why not?

3. Mobile ad growth is seen as an almost $30B opportunity while print advertising is over-indexed by 5%.

PR IMPLICATIONS: As news consumption continues to move online, include images and videos with your press releases to increase the potential and decrease the turnaround time of online news coverage.

4. A massive increase in the global messaging ecosystem continues with a strong increase in sharing within smaller groups.

PR IMPLICATIONS: More and more tools are launching to aid communications. This increase in peer-to-peer communication tools makes word of mouth recommendations more important than ever. Provide your fans with short news bites and smaller multimedia clips so they can easily talk about your brand, and these messaging tools will help them share it with others.

6. Social media traffic referrals continue to grow with the sharing cycle for social media articles averaging 6.5 hours on Twitter and 9 hours on Facebook. Buzzfeed continues to receive the honor of content most shared on Facebook, while the BBC holds the top spot on Twitter.

PR IMPLICATIONS: Meeker’s chart (which lists the top 10 content sources on both social networks) is a reflection of what piques the interest of consumers on each platform. This provides a strong media list for you if you are looking to grow engagement on one or the other. In addition, the stories these outlets publish provide valuable insight on the images they use and their writing style. Adapt your press releases accordingly.

7. 2014 is the year of the Internet Trifecta: Critical mass of content + community to give it context + commerce.

9. Re-Imagining User Interfaces (UI): R.I.P. Bad User Interfaces; today’s consumers are much more willing to leave companies for their competitors due to bad web or mobile interfaces.

PR IMPLICATIONS: Company news pages have changed drastically in the last few years. Have you updated yours? Today’s sites include social interfaces, access usable multimedia, and historical information and are readable from any device. Is your company news page keeping pace?

10. Massive increase in video views, long and short form.

PR IMPLICATIONS: Create videos! Not sure where to start? How about a video showcasing a key decision point in the development or launch of your product or initiative? Or ask us! We’ve been distributing multimedia for years.

By providing your news in both a textual and image/video format, you are effectively giving the consumer the choice to read your news in the format they prefer. By meeting their consumption needs, you create a higher likelihood of news sharing, or word of mouth marketing. And nothing is more effective than that!

Want to learn more about how you can adapt your press release process to meet these new technology and behavioral changes? Let’s set up a time to talk.

Earlier today, CommPro published a summary piece highlighting the importance of multimedia within press releases. We discuss this topic at great length with our customers.

The truth is, reporters are no longer interested in writing stories based on text only press release. And for good reason, study after study has shown that whenever images are inserted into the communication, the impact increases.

Still on the fence about adding photos, videos, gifs, images and more to your press releases? We highly encourage you to read this piece. Have questions about the creation or distribution of multimedia within the PR process? Let us know!